Shaman
by zigolo
Summary: Tino was hunting in the forest but ends up finding a child with blue eyes and impressive set of eyebrows. Now he needs to help him find his "Papa". Contains Finnish Shamanism and Vikings.


**A/N: **Hello people. This fic was brought to you by very severe boredom and cold weather that stops me from going outside. I hope you enjoy my story. I apologize for all the possible grammar mistakes.

**Disclaimer: **Hetalia and all the characters belong to Himuruya Hidekazi. I'm only a measly inject in his almighty shadow.

**Warnings: **Ancient Finnish Shamanism and pagan religions. Vikings. Might also include some shonen-ai. And lastly Author's English grammar sucks from time to time.

**Chapter One**

The world was glittering under a heavy blanket of snow. It was very quiet and all living things seemed to be hiding or sleeping. Only one young man with a white fur over his shoulders and head was moving in this frozen scenery.

He was average sized young man with blond hair where couple feathers could be seen tied here and there, and his eyes were unusual shade of purple. There was a bow perched on his left shoulder and battered looking leather satchel on his right.

Tino could see his ragged breath in the cold air. It came out as little puffs of steam clouds that quickly disappeared into nothingness.

His fingers felt numb from the cold, but he tried to ignore them in order to continue search for the rabbit he had been hunting for the whole morning. It certainly didn't help that the little bugger was almost completely invisible in the snowy landscape.

But he certainly wasn't going to give up, not after all this trouble. So he just wrapped his reindeer pelt tighter around himself and searched for the small animal, his bow ready on his shoulder. He had chosen the little slower but more reliable hunting method.

Instead of directly following his prey he had started making a big circle around the rabbit's trail. The small animals were known to fool foxes from time to time, by going backwards on its own footprints and then making a big leap to completely different direction.

Tino had started his circle the moment he had first seen his prey's trail. If the trail continued when he had made half of the circle he could deduce the rabbit wasn't going to end up inside his circle and thus he should start over. And now finally after all his hard work, he couldn't see the animal's footprints anywhere, meaning the flurry creature was now inside his circle.

He walked with little difficulty in the high crust of snow, narrowing his circle with every lap and coming closer and closer to his prey. His eyes trying to catch any visible movement in the snow.

His heart jumped when he heard something like twig snapping behind his back. He slowly turned around and saw the rabbit gnawing frozen willow branches. He removed his bow from his shoulder very carefully, trying not to scare the little animal away and just as carefully aiming his arrow at the rabbit.

The rabbit's dark tipped ears twitched and it turned it's small eyes at him in panic, obviously having heard him.

Tino didn't give it any time to flee. His arrow flew from his bow and hit its target with a soft thud.

Tino smiled feeling very victorious, and not to mention hungry. He could make a fire and start roasting his prey right away, but it would be better not to risk it. Wild animals were starved in the mid-winter and he didn't want fight over his food with pack of wolves.

With a few large strides he reached the rabbit and lifted it by its hind legs. He removed the arrow and was pleasantly surprised that he hadn't damaged the animal's coat all that much. He could perhaps even sell it in the marketplace.

His brows furrowed in though and put the rabbit into his worn satchel. He usually tried not to mingle with other people. Perhaps it was because his mother had been a Shaman and she had taught her son to be one too that he preferred to live among the nature instead of his own kind. Or he just was a loner by nature.

It wasn't as if he didn't sometimes socialise with other people. In fact there was a village few miles in the north west that often asked him to lend them his favours. As a Shaman he had some basic knowledge about healing sicknesses and injuries. He could make some weak weather spells, mostly sailors and fishermen asked for wind spells so he had gotten pretty good at making them.

But most of all he liked talking with the trees.

Spirits of plants and trees were such a gentle and patient beings. When he was a child he had loved nothing better than laying under an old birch tree on a summer day and listening as it whispered to its fellow trees.

Mostly they talked about weather, sometimes they told him what they had seen during their long lives or they could just sang quietly among themselves, songs that had been sung so many times that even trees remembered them.

A cold breeze distracted him from his thoughts. What he wouldn't give for a spell that could drive away this freezing winter. Trees were sleepy during the winter and he had never enjoyed speaking with animals as much. They were wary of humans and tried to avoid them if they could.

Another breeze made him shiver. His nose was so numb it felt like it could fall off at any moment, and he could see frost on his eyelashes. He had spent too much time hunting and was now paying the price. It would take about half day to reach his Kota(1), and the sun was already setting fast.

One more thing he didn't like about the winter, there was never enough daylight.

He settled for brisk walk, thankful that at least his shoes had kept his feet warm. He stopped only once when he saw a young black grouse hiding under a pine. He hesitated for a moment. Birds were holy,(2) and he tried not to hunt them, but this was about surviving through the winter, certainly gods could forgive him if he afterwards left sacrifices for them.

His mind made he quickly shot the bird trying not to feel too remorseful. It wasn't like he had shot a water bird (3).

Small flakes of snow had started to fall from the grey sky and he felt the urge to hurry. The last thing he needed was getting caught in a blizzard.

He stumbled a little in his hurry and hit his head against something hard and solid.

"_Ai, hitto!"_(4)

Swearing under his breath he looked apologetically at the tree he had so rudely collided with.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going."

The tree however seemed distracted, this wasn't the normal sleepy feeling he got from the most trees during winter, the pine seemed worried.

_Under… a birch… _

"Eh, what," Tino asked in puzzlement. "What is under a birch?"

The tree had fallen quiet again.

Tino bit his lover lip in frustration. He was so close home he could almost feel the warmth of fire and his stomach growled at the thought of rabbit's meat.

But the tree obviously wanted him to go and see -whatever it was- under some birch tree.

_Which one?_

The forest was full of birches, so how in the Ukko's(5) name was he-

Tino froze middle of his mental tirade, he had heard something. Like a wail of an injured animal.

He hurriedly started running and the sound got louder with every step. It was definitely wailing, but not animal's.

Human child was crying.

What was a child doing here? Middle of a dense forest with blizzard coming. Had some pair of selfish parents abandoned their child here? Tino was now very worried and when he saw a small child sitting under a birch, covered in snow, he didn't waste time and reached for the child's shoulder.

"Hey, why are you crying, what's wrong?"

The crying stopped and large pair of blue eyes with very impressive eyebrows peered at him under a hood.

"Who-" the boys lips were blue and shaking from the cold. "Wh-who are you?"

Tino smiled at the child, "My name is Tino."

The child watched him in amazement. "Are you an angel?"

"An-gel…" Tino stumbled with the unfamiliar word. "I'm sorry. I don't know what that is."

The boys eyes widened and he seemed shocked, like he couldn't believe what Tino had just said.

"Um, anyway," Tino felt little uncomfortable being stared at. "Why are you here, where is your mom and dad?"

The boy's shoulders slumped and tears started again pour out of his eyes.

"I was with papa and my uncles," he hiccupped. "but it started s-snowing and we got se-separated." he hid his face into his sleeves and sniffled loudly.

Tino awkwardly tried to pat the boy's head. He had never really dealt with a child before so he wasn't sure what to do.

"well, um, you should come with me." he smiled reassuringly when the boy looked at him startled. "we'll warm you up, I'm sure you are freezing and then we can go look for your papa and uncles."

"But what if we can't find them a-anymore?"

"I'm sure we find them," Tino said surely. "I know all the roads people use around here and with snowstorm coming they won't be going anywhere."

This seemed to reassure the boy and he even gave Tino a slight smile.

"Peter."

"Huh?"

"My name is Peter."

"Ah, I see. It's nice to meet you Peter. Do you think you could walk, my home is not far from here."

Peter looked down on his legs and mumbled. "My feet feel numb…"

Tino grinned at him. "Of course, since you have been lying in the snow gods know how long." he rose from his crouching position and held out his hand for Peter to take.

"Walking will make you feel warmer, come on now."

With a slight grunt Peter heaved himself up and was now clinging from Tino's arm. The boy was pretty short. His head came somewhere around Tino's shoulders.

"How old are you Peter?" Tino asked as they began to make their way towards his home.

"Eleven, almost twelve." came bragging answer. "Uncle Mathias always says I'm growing like a weed and will soon be taller than him!"

This was obviously something to be proud off and Tino responded accordingly. "That's great. Are your uncles and dad merchants?"

Peter seemed to hesitate. "No… they are… something like sailors."

Tino quirked his eyebrows. Well that wasn't a very clear answer. He wanted to ask more but he noticed his kota coming into view.

"Ah, we are here!" he untied the leather strings that kept the door closed and stepped inside. His tent was cold as expected, but it wouldn't take long to build a fire and thus making the air warm up.

"Come in Peter, be like at your own home."

The boy looked around in amazement and even with a bit of awe. "This place is wicked! You seriously live here?"

Tino just smiled and concentrated on building the fire.

_I start the day by hunting a rabbit and come back home with a child! I wonder how this will work out…_

**A/N: **Love it? Hate it? Feel like it's the disgrace of fanfic world? Please, let me know.

Some word explanations:

(1) Kota - Tipi-like hut. Laplander's hut. Especially sami people lived in these.

(2) Birds were considered to be messengers of gods. Ancient Finns also believed that birds brought human's souls to him at the moment of birth and took it away at the moment of death. In some areas people carried carved wooden bird figures to prevent soul from being lost in the path of dreams.

It's interesting note, also that the "edge of the world" was called _Lintukoto _(the home of the birds), it was believed to be a warm region where birds lived during winter. Milky Way is called _Linnunrata _in finnish, (Path of the birds), as it was thought that birds used it to move along to Lintukoto and back.

(3) World was believed to be born from waterfowl's egg. Swans were considered especially holy since they could "see" with their long neck all three planes of existence of the world.

(4) "Ai, Hitto!"- Ai is pretty mucj finnish version of 'ow' or 'ouch' and hitto means 'fuck'.

(5) Ukko - he was the god of sky and thunder. He was the most significant god.


End file.
